Muskogee Dev. Co. v. Green
| Citation | 97 P. 619,22 Okla. 237,1908 OK 194 |
| Decision Date | 16 September 1908 |
| Docket Number | Case Number: 829 Ind Ter T |
| Parties | MUSKOGEE DEVELOPMENT CO. et al. v. GREEN et al. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Oklahoma |
¶0 INDIANS--Allotments--Leases--Accounting. An allotment of an infant without a legal guardian, living with his father, who is his natural guardian, having been leased by said natural guardian at the rate of 25 cents per acre per year for a period of five years, and for improvements to be made thereon, to consist of breaking, fences, and houses, benefiting such estate, said contract having been entered into in good faith by all parties thereto, believing it to be a substantially fair contract and authorized under the law, said father, afterwards having been appointed as legal guardian, repudiating said contract, the value of such improvements will be allowed out of the rents in an accounting.
Error from the United States Court for the Western District of the Indian Territory.
Action by the Muskogee Development Company and others against Dora Green and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiffs bring error. Reversed and remanded.
This suit was instituted on the 1st day of January, A. D. 1905, by the plaintiffs in error, as plaintiffs, against the defendants in error, as defendants, and it grew out of the following condition of facts:
On August 16, A. D. 1902, or eight days after the promulgation of the Supplemental Creek Agreement, R. B. Hutchinson entered into a five-year agricultural lease with the defendant David Green, who was the father of the other two defendants, Dora Green and Esther Green, which agricultural lease covered the allotments of the two children named, and together made up the W. 1/2 of section 27, township 12 N., range 16 E., of the Creek Nation of Indian Territory. It clearly appears from the evidence that at the time Hutchinson made this contract with the father of these children he believed that the Supplemental Agreement authorized the father to make such a contract. In fact, such was the universal belief in the Creek Nation at that time, and a very large part of the legal fraternity entertained the same opinion. Subsequently the court decided that such a contract was invalid. Indian Lands & Trust Co. v. Shoenfelt, 5 Ind. Terr. 41, 79 S.W. 134. Under the contract in question Hutchinson proceeded to place valuable improvements upon the premises, amounting to the sum of $ 654.11 on the Dora Green allotment and $ 696.61 on the Esther Green allotment, paying annually, in addition to these improvements, a cash rental of 25 cents per acre for the land, which was a fair rental for unimproved lands in the Creek Nation at that time. In April, 1903. Hutchinson transferred a three-fourths interest in these leases to his coplaintiff, the Muskogee Development Company, retaining an undivided one-fourth interest in them. The Muskogee Development Company repaid him for the improvements he had put upon said land, and proceeded to put the same in cultivation.
No protest of any kind was made from any source until the fall of the year 1903, when David Green, who had entered into the original contract as father and natural guardian of his two children, procured himself to be appointed by the United States Court for the Western District of Indian Territory as legal guardian of said children, and made application to the United States Indian agent to have the plaintiffs and their tenants put off the land. Mr. Hutchinson thereupon took a new contract from him, which he signed as legal guardian, and which contract is set out in the printed record, and ran for a term of one year, but was not approved by the court and no authority was obtained to make the same, although plaintiffs paid $ 200. It is attempted to be shown on the part of the defendants that the entering into of this contract was a complete settlement of all matters between the parties in interest; but, in the light of the testimony of Mr. Hutchinson and of Mr. Plummer, who had no interest whatever in the matter, it is clear that this contract was entered into so far as plaintiffs were concerned simply to prevent being summarily thrown off the premises in controversy and that they regarded the $ 200 which they paid as "blood money." The testimony of Green himself shows that he never had any other agricultural contract upon the land in question until he entered into this contract in August, 1902, with Hutchinson, and that prior to the institution of this suit he had ousted the plaintiffs, taken possession of Dora Green's allotment and put a tenant of his own thereon, and had also taken possession of Esther Green's allotment and put a tenant upon it, all of which occurred about the beginning of the year 1905.
It was because of being thus ousted, and in an endeavor to get some compensation for the valuable improvements they had in good faith placed upon the premises in controversy, that the plaintiffs instituted this suit and applied for the appointment of a receiver, to the end that the rents and profits arising from the land might be collected, and that out of such rents and profits they might be paid for the actual betterments they had put upon the property, and which gave the property a rental value in excess of 25 cents per acre per annum, and in this way work out through the medium of a court of equity a result which, under the rulings of the court, could not be obtained in any other way. The court in October, 1905, appointed a receiver, who never qualified, and thereafter, on the 11th day of November, another receiver, having been appointed on the 7th day of that month, did qualify, and was authorized to rent the premises.
The cause was referred to the master in chancery, and on the 28th day of March, 1906, after having taken testimony, much of which is not particularly intelligible, the master filed his report, in which he made the following findings of fact and recommendations:
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